Review: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be compromised.

With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has suddenly gotten all kinds of complicated. Now, change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met (Goodreads).

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is in one word ‘adorable’. It’s a fun, light read with some heartwarming and laugh out loud moments. It’s fun trying to figure out who Blue is (though I totally called it pretty much from the beginning) and his interactions with Blue are fun to read (especially since I’m a sucker for different formats in books like emails).

Simon’s family was very present, though I feel like they could’ve been worked out a bit more. While I loved them and thought they had a cute relationship (my favourite moment of them has to be when they skype with Simon’s older sister to discuss The Bachelor and their father actually has a rose), they still felt kind of flat to me.

I also loved the focus on friendship in this book. Simon’s friends were very present throughout the book and their relationships and conversations about everything and nothing seemed very realistic to me.

Simon himself is a great protagonist, but maybe I’m biased because he’s a huge Potterhead. Why had nobody mentioned that to me yet? All I knew was that this book is full with oreos, if someone had just mentioned all the Harry Potter references I would’ve picked this up so much sooner.

“What’s a dementor?”
I mean, I can’t even. “Nora, you are no longer my sister.”
“So it’s some Harry Potter thing,” she says.”

Simon’s reaction is me

So why did I give this book four stars, and not five? While I’d definitely recommend it, it just didn’t blow me away, which is a shame, because everything about this screams ‘MICHELLE WOULD LOVE THIS’. I can’t exactly put my finger on why it didn’t blow me away, but it just didn’t. Still, a four-star read is really good too of course!

Have you read Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda yet? I feel like everyone in the book blogging community has haha, but I’m sure that’s not true! How do you feel about this book? Let me know in the comments!

No that wasn’t why it didn’t blow me away! I just can’t put my finger on why. Maybe it’s just a feeling and there’s no actual reason haha. Ooh definitely. There already are some, but one of my main characters is a Potterhead and at this point he isn’t a main character yet, so there will be more haha

Lovely review I am really glad you liked this book. I loved the scene where they skyped his sister it was great. I can’t believe you called who Blue was straight away I was convinced it was someone else. Like you I really loved that friendship was pretty much dominant throughout the book.

I’m glad too! It was hilarious and I can totally see my mom and I doing something similar 😂 Haha I felt so smart when it turned out I was right 😝 Usually I’m wrong when it comes to these kind of things 😂

[…] Same with Simon. Did I seriously read this only this year?? This book was so cute and Simon is so relatable. It didn’t blow me away, but I might reread it next year and we’ll see. Cinder didn’t blow me away at first either and now it’s one of my favourite books. Read my review here. […]